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PHE  COIN  SHILLING  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

BAY. 


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A  PAPER  BY 

WILLIAM  G.  SUMNER. 


[From  the  Yale  Review ,  November,  1898.] 


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THE  COIN  SHILLING  OF  MASSACHUSETTS  BAY. 

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SILVER  plate  was  first  rated  in  1640,  at  five  shillings  per 
ounce  sterling,  .925  fine.1  The  English  mint  price  for 
silver,  after  1601,  was  5s.  2d.  per  ounce,  but  it  seems  to  have 
been  believed  in  Massachusetts  that  it  was  still  five  shillings. 
Strange  as  this  error  appears,  it  is  supported  by  an  incidental 
statement  of  Hutchinson2  that  he  owned  several  shillings  of  the 
reign  of  Charles  I,  which  weighed  four  pennyweights  each. 
No  mention  of  any  such  coins  occurs  in  Ruding,  but  he  says 
that,  in  1631,  “Many  of  [the  money  weights]  which  were  in 
common  use  (although  they  were  marked  with  the  King’s 
ensign)  were  too  heavy,  and  others  too  light,  so  that  men 
bought  and  received  by  one  weight,  and  sold  and  delivered  by 
another.”3 

From  the  first  year  of  the  settlement  rates  were  set  at  which 
commodities  could  be  tendered  in  payment  of  taxes.  In  the 
following  years  the  system  of  barter  rates  was  extended  to  pri¬ 
vate  transactions,  so  that  there  was  a  multiple  currency,  out  of 
which  that  one  thing  was  chosen,  and  became  the  money  of 
account,  which  enabled  a  debtor  to  discharge  his  obligation 
with  the  least  sacrifice.  Hence  arose  a  barter  shilling,  by  the 
side  of  which  was  placed,  by  the  law  of  1640,  a  coin  shilling,  or 
bullion  shilling  of  silver,  which  contained  96/88.8  grains,4  while 
a  shilling  sterling  was  only  92.901/85.934  grains. 

In  1642  the  Court  ordered  that  ducatoons  of  three  gilders 
should  be  current  at  six  shillings,  rix  dollars  of  two  and  a  half  gil¬ 
ders  and  pieces  of  eight  at  five  shillings.5  What  ducatoons  were, 
in  1642,  we  do  not  know.  Sir  Isaac  Newton  found  them,  in 
1703,  if  of  Holland,  worth  65.59  pence  sterling,  .937.5  fine;  if  of 
Flanders,  66.15  pence  sterling,  .943.75  fine.6  The  three  gilder 


1  Col.  Rec .,  294.  2  Bost.  Evg.  Rost,  Jan.  14,  1762.  3  /  Ruding,  386. 

4  The  first  number  is  the  gross  weight,  the  second,  the  fine  contents. 

5  See  the  Discourse  Concerning  the  Currencies  of  the  British  Plantations,  1740,  in 
the  Overstone  Tracts  :  reprint  edited  by  C.  J.  Bullock,  1897,  who  attributes  it  to 
Douglass. 

6  23  Gent .  Mag.,  6. 


248 


Yale  Review. 


[Nov 


pieces  of  Holland  are  not  called  ducatoons  by  him.  They  were 
worth  62.46  pence  sterling,  .916.66  fine.  There  was  a  great 
number  and  variety  of  rix  dollars.  The  one  referred  to  in  the 
Massachusetts  law  was  probably  the  “Patagon  leg  dollar  or  rix 
dollar  of  Holland,  or  piece  of  50  sty  vers”  of  Sir  Isaac  Newton’s 
table.  This  was  worth,  in  1703,  52.28  pence  sterling.  It  was 
then  only  .866.66  fine.  If  it  had  been  .925  fine  it  would  have 
been  worth  4s.  7d.  2.8f.  A  rix  dollar  current  in  London,  in 
1 626,  was  worth,  by  weight  and  assay,  4s.  7d.  2f.,  but  was  cur¬ 
rent  at  two  pence  less,  being  mint  charge  and  broker’s  commis¬ 
sion,  and  the  piece  of  eight,  worth  by  mint  test  4s.  6d.  if.,  was 
current  there  at  two  pence  less,  for  the  same  reason.1  Of  the 
three  coins  mentioned,  the  piece  of  eight  was  by  far  the  most 
important  for  Massachusetts,  being  obtained  already  by  trade 
with  pirates  and  with  Jamaica.  It  was  also  overrated  relatively 
to  the  other  two  in  the  law  of  1642,  and  therefore  displaced 
them.  Cotton  found  it  to  be  420  grains  in  weight,  but  of  vary¬ 
ing  fineness,  .916.66  to  .925.  This  coin  being  rated  at  five  shil¬ 
lings,  the  shilling  of  Masachusetts  was  reduced  to  84/77.7 
grains.  In  fact,  however,  all  the  pieces  of  eight  in  circulation 
were  more  or  less  clipped  and,  although  Cotton  found  them  up 
to  sterling  standard  in  1626,  others  disputed  it  then,  and  later 
in  the  17th  century  they  fell  below  it.2 

The  presence  of  barter  currency  and  of  wampum  by  the  side 
of  silver,  forced  a  constant  exportation  of  the  latter,  or  the  clip¬ 
ping  of  such  coins  as  remained.  The  barter  currency  was  called 
“pay”  or  “country  pay,”  which  meant  that  it  was  the  money 
of  account.  “Country  pay  became  the  general  measure 
throughout  the  government.”  It  was  30  or  40  per  cent,  below 
sterling  in  1642.3  This  barter  shilling  then  would  correspond 
to  a  silver  shilling  of  65.03/60.15  or  55.74/51.55.  It  constantly 
and  steadily  depreciated.  “Silver  in  New  England,”  said  Cot¬ 
ton  Mather,  “is  like  the  water  of  a  swift  running  river;  always 
coming  and  as  fast  going  away.”4  The  accepted  explanation 
of  this  phenomenon  was  the  balance  of  trade  and  the  colonial 

1  Cotton,  Posthuma ,  296. 

2  Sumner,  The  Spanish  Dollar ,  Hist.  Rev.  July,  1898. 

3  Hutchinson,  l.  c.  4  Trumbull  in  Am.  Antiq.  Soc.y  1884,  275. 


% 


1 898]  The  Coin  Shilling  of  Massachusetts  Bay.  249 

relation.  The  facts  just  stated,  however,  show  that  a  \2]/2 
pennyweight  dollar  could  barely  remain  in  circulation.  “By  the 
middle  of  the  17th  century,  clipping  was  rampant  in  the  West 
Indies,  and  light  Spanish  silver  coins  became  the  general  stand¬ 
ard  of  value  in  the  British  possessions  of  the  new  world.  As  far 
as  can  be  learned,  Jamaica  and  New  England  took  the  lead  in 
these  proceedings.”  The  current  piece  of  eight  was  down  to 
336  grains.1  Inasmuch,  however,  as  the  barter  shilling  was 
constantly  depreciating,  and  the  silver  coins  were  being  clipped 
to  keep  pace  with  it,  this  “standard  of  value”  hardly  deserved 
the  name.  While  the  barter  currency  was  the  money  of 
account,  the  money  of  ultimate  reference  for  it  was  uncertain, 
depreciating,  and  indefinable.  It  was  of  foreign  manufacture. 
It  was  not  made  with  accuracy  or  regularity.  It  was  rated  in 
a  traditional  English  denomination  to  which  it  did  not  fit.  It 
was  not  rated  at  its  sterling  value,  but  arbitrarily,  so  that  the 
definition  of  a  colonial  shilling  was  derived,  not  from  a  sterling 
shilling,  but  from  it,  and  the  relation  to  sterling  was  a  deduction. 
It  was  being  clipped  all  the  time. 

The  inconveniences  of  this  complicated  set  of  relations  led  to 
the  project  of  establishing  a  mint  at  Boston.  Probably,  how¬ 
ever,  the  hope  of  preventing  exportation  by  recoining  was  the 
more  immediate  motive.  This  hope  was  vain.  Recoinage 
could  have  no  effect  on  the  forces  which  caused  exportation, 
but  it  could  render  the  English  colonists  independent  of  the 
errors  of  the  Spanish  mints.  In  an  address  of  Massachusetts 
to  the  King,  1684,  a  passage  was  inserted  to  apologize  for  the 
establishment  of  the  mint,  which  passage  was  stricken  out  on 
final  revision.  The  excuses  alleged  were  that  they  had  no 
exports  but  bulky  corn  and  fish,  “and  therefor,  for  some  years, 
paper  bills  passed  for  payment  of  debts,  which  are  very  subject 
to  be  lost,  rent,  or  counterfeit,  and  other  inconveniences. 
There  comes  in  a  considerable  quantity  of  light  base  Spanish 
money,  whereby  many  people  were  cozened,  and  the  Colony 
in  danger  of  being  undone  thereby,  which  put  us  upon  the  pro¬ 
ject  of  melting  it  down  and  stamping  such  pieces  as  aforesaid  to 
pass  in  payment  of  debts  amongst  ourselves.”  The  Act  for  the 

1  Chalmers,  Colonial  Currencies ,  8. 


250 


Yale  Review . 


[Nov. 


mint,  as  first  drawn,  also  contained  a  preamble  which  was 
omitted  on  revision:  “Forasmuch  as  the  new  order  about  money 
is  not  well  resented  by  the  people,  and  full  of  difficulties,  and 
unlikely  to  take  effect,  in  regard  no  persons  are  found  willing 
to  try  and  stamp  the  same.”1  The  reference  here  is  to 
some  order  about  money  which  is  not  in  the  record.  It  appears 
to  mean  that  they  intended  at  first  to  reduce  the  coins  to  bars 
which  should  be  stamped.  The  first  ordinance  for  the  mint 
provided  that  the  coins  should  be  flat  and  square.2 

A  Committee  of  the  General  Court  was  appointed,  in  1652,  to 
“  appoint  the  mint  house.”  They  reported  that  it  should  be 
16  feet  square  and  10  feet  high;  that  the  Colony  should  provide 
the  plant,  that  a  man  should  be  impressed  to  build  the  house, 
and  that  he  should  be  authorized  to  impress  help.3  In  order 
to  prevent  washing  and  clipping,  the  law  provided  that  each 
coin  should  have  a  double  ring  and  “Massachusetts”  on  the 
margin,  and  a  tree  in  the  center,  on  one  side,  and  New  England 
and  the  year  of  Our  Lord,  on  the  other,  a  picture  being  drawn 
on  the  margin  of  the  page  to  elucidate  the  enactment.4  The 
provisions  of  the  mint  law  are  confused  and  contradictory,  in 
fact  they  are  unintelligible  without  information  of  a  supple¬ 
mentary  agreement  between  the  Committee  and  Hull,  the 
mint-master,  which  is  not  incorporated  in  the  law.5  Crosby6 

1  Hull's  Diary ,  3  Am.  Antiq.  Soc.,  282  ;  1  Hutchinson,  164.  X 

2  Atkins  ( Corns  of  British  Possessions)  says  that  silver  “  plan chets  ”  were  in 
circulation  before  1651,  which  bore  on  one  side  “N.  E.”  and  on  the  other  XII, 
for  twelve  pence.  They  are  depicted  in  Crosby.  Stickney  (2  Essex  Inst.,  99) 
says  :  “  Shillings  have  lately  appeared  dated  1650  ;  these,  if  not  the  work  of 
modern  artists,  must  *  *  *  have  been  patterns  struck  in  England.  They  are  of 
superior  workmanship  to  those  adopted  in  1652,  and  might  have  been  rejected 
on  account  of  the  expense  attending  their  execution.  That  experiments  were 
made  with  a  view  to  copper  coinage  is  evident,  as  I  have  one  of  Massachusetts, 
dated  1652,  of  pure  copper,  presenting  no  appearance  of  being  a  counterfeit, 
and  is  the  only  one  that  I  ever  saw.”  [?] 

3  3  Am.  Antiq.  Soc.,  286. 

4  IV.  1.  Col.  Rec .,  104.  An  attempt  has  been  made  (I.  3  Hist.  Mag.,  197)  to 
show  that  the  two  rings  and  the  tree  were  occult  symbols,  based  on  Old  Testa¬ 
ment  texts,  the  significance  of  which  to  Puritans  was:  “God  protecting  New 
England,”  and  “  Independence.” 

6  It  is  approved  but  not  rehearsed,  IV.  1.  Col.  Rec.,  118. 

6  Early  Coins  of  America,  34. 


1898]  The  Coin  Shilling  of  Massachusetts  Bay.  251 

gives  a  heliotype*  reproduction  of  the  manuscript  law.  It  is  a 
slovenly  scrawl,  with  erasures,  superposed  corrections,  inter¬ 
lineations,  and  amendments,  resulting  in  one  case  in  an  illegible 
blur  at  a  material  point.  The  mint-master  was  “for  value  to 
stamp  three  [erased  and  two  substituted]  pence  in  a  shilling  of 
lesser  value  than  the  present  English  coin.”  The  upper  House 
at  first  allowed  for  mint  charge  18  pence  in  20  shillings;  this 
the  Deputies  reduced  to  one  shilling,  and  so  the  law  provided, 
as  it  was  passed.  It  further  provided  that  for  silver  brought 
in  by  anyone  “the  mint-master  shall  deliver  him  the  like  weight 
in  current  money,  viz:  every  shilling  to  weigh  three  penny  troy 
weight  and  lesser  pieces  proportionably,  deducting  allowance 
for  coinage  as  before  expressed.”  It  was  strictly  enjoined  that 
the  coins  should  be  of  sterling  alloy. 

It  is  impossible  to  reconcile  these  prescriptions  with  each 
other.  According  to  the  usual  slipshod  colonial  method  of 
doing  business,  no  fair  copy  having  been  made,  inconsistencies 
which  resulted  from  amendments  stand  in  the  document  unad¬ 
justed.  Analysis  and  comparison  lead  to  the  following  conclu¬ 
sions.  They  supposed,  as  we  have  seen  above,  that  the  English 
mint  price  for  silver  was  five  shillings  per  ounce;  i.  e.  96  grains 
sterling  for  a  shilling.  They  meant  to  make  a  shilling  equal 
to  nine  pence  sterling  on  that  supposition,  i.  e.  72  grains  or  3 
pennyweights.  Hull  and  his  partner,  Sanderson,  would  not 
agree  to  the  reduced  allowance  for  mint  charge.  The  Com¬ 
mittee  consented  to  raise  it  to  15  pence  per  20  shillings,  and  to 
allow  one  penny  per  oz.  for  wastage.  Inasmuch  as  20  of  the 
proposed  shillings  would  weigh  just  3  ounces,  this  carried  the 
total  mint  allowance  up  to  18  pence  per  20  shillings  again.  The 
Committee  consented  to  this  very  reluctantly,  and  until  the  next 
session  only,  expressing  the  hope  that  the  mint-master  would 
find  that  he  could  afford  to  take  less.  He  was  to  reduce  all 
silver  to  standard,  and  to  coin  it,  at  the  uniform  price  agreed  on, 
for  the  Committee  urge  that  “there  is  likelihood  of  several 
kinds  of  work  in  which  he  is  to  be  employed  where  there  is  no 
refining  and  so  less  labor.” 

Specimens  of  the  coins  which  have  been  tested  weighed  61, 
65,  67,  70,  and  72  grains.  An  assay  at  the  mint  of  the  United 


252 


Yale  Review. 


[Nov. 


States  showed  fineness  .926.1  Cuts  of  the  coins  are  given  in  3 
Am.  Antiq.  Soc.  Milling  was  not  introduced  in  England  until 
1660.2  No  evidence  has  been  found  that  it  ever  was  introduced 
in  Massachusetts.  Consequently  filing  or  clipping  cannot  be 
detected,  and  as  the  coins  were  all  subject  to  it,  very  few  perfect 
specimens  exist.  The  deficiency  of  weight  in  those  just  men¬ 
tioned  is  no  proof  that  they  were  not  of  full  weight  when  issued. 
On  the  contrary,  the  one  which  shows  the  maximum  weight  no 
doubt  shows  the  normal  weight.  It  is  true  that  the  coins  are 
said  to  have  passed  abroad  at  three-fourths  of  sterling,3  and 
that  a  Board  of  English  Commissioners,  in  1655,  stated  that  the 
metallic  value  of  New  England  coins  was  25  per  cent,  below 
sterling  of  the  same  denomination,4  also  that  one  of  the  com¬ 
plaints  made,  about  1661,  against  Massachusetts,  was  for 
recoining  English  coin  at  a  reduction  of  one-fourth;5  but 
Randolph,  in  1676,  said  that  the  New  England  shilling  weighed 
three  pennyweights  and  was  worth  9%  [9-3]  pence  sterling,6 
and  a  Report  of  the  English  Mint,  in  1684,  stated  that  the  alloy 
of  the  coin  was  correct  and  that  it  was  22  per  cent,  below  the 
English  shilling.7  The  intention  was  to  put  the  New  England 
standard  25  per  cent,  below  the  English,  supposing  that  the 
latter  was  96  grains  for  a  shilling.  In  fact  it  was  92.9  grains, 
so  that  a  shilling  of  72  grains  was  77.5  per  cent,  of  it.  There 
remains  no  doubt  then,  that  the  pine  tree  shilling,  as  it  came 
from  the  mint,  weighed  72  grains,  .925  fine,  pure  contents  66.6 
grains.  Those  prescriptions  in  the  mint  law  which  are  incon¬ 
sistent  with  this  are  the  ones  which  must  be  sacrificed.  The 
mint  selling  price,  and  the  basis  of  the  silver  currency  (the  pine 
tree  rate),  was  6s.  8d.  per  oz.  The  metallic  par  of  exchange 
with  sterling  was  129  for  100.  To  get  these  coins,  however, 
the  individual  who  brought  silver  to  the  mint  must  pay  18  pence 
per  20s.,  that  is  5.4  grains  of  standard  silver  per  shilling,  or  yy2 
per  cent,  for  mint  charges;  the  cost  to  him,  therefor,  of  a  72 
grain  shilling  was  77.4  grains  of  silver,  or  the  mint  buying  price 

1  1  Essex  Inst.,  125  :  2  ditto,  100,  206.  2  2  Ruding,  7.  3  Felt,  32. 

4  13th  Rep.  Hist.  Mss.  Comm.,  App.,  Pt.  II,  94. 

5  Cal.  State  Pps.  Colon.,  1661-8,  26. 

6  Hutchinson  Pps. ,  480. 


7  3  Amer.  Antiq.  Soc.,  302. 


1898]  The  Com  Shilling  of  Massachusetts  Bay.  253 

was  6s.  2.4 1 8d.  per  oz.  The  heavy  mint  charge  depressed 
prices  in  the  coins,  and  the  law  (probably  in  vain)  prohibited 
the  circulation  of  any  other  except  English,  which,  however, 
could  not  legally  be  exported  from  England.  No  one  would 
take  bullion  to  the  mint  unless  a  72  grain  coin  would  buy  as 
much  as  77.4  grains  of  bullion  in  the  market.  The  latter 
amount  was  therefore  the  effective  shilling  in  the  market.1  It 
was  also  forbidden,  in  1654,  to  export  silver  to  a  greater  amount 
than  20  shillings,  by  one  person,  at  one  time,  for  personal 
expenses,  the  penalty  being  confiscation  of  all  visible  estate, 
one-third  to  the  informer.2 

The  amount  of  silver  coined  in  the  first  years  of  the  mint  was 
large.3  The  coins  spread  all  over  the  northern  colonies,  yet 
they  never  were  the  current  ordinary  money  of  account  even  in 
the  towns;  far  less  in  the  country.  The  Chisholm  accounts  of 
Harvard  College,  kept  in  detail  from  1650  to  1659,  show  few 
payments  in  silver.4  The  coins  were  all  dated  1652  as  long  as 
the  mint  lasted.  The  mint  house  was  on  land  owned  by  Hull, 
but  which  was  to  be  transferred  to  the  Colony  at  a  valuation 
upon  the  expiration  of  his  contract.5 

The  charter  of  Massachusetts  Bay  did  not  contain  a  grant 
of  the  power  to  coin,  and  there  was  some  fear,  after  the  Restora¬ 
tion,  of  the  consequences  of  assuming  it.  The  power  to  coin 
was  granted  in  the  letters  patent  of  Virginia,6  and  this  shows, 
although  the  power  was  not  granted  in  the  second  charter,  that 
power  to  coin  was  not  considered  inconsistent  with  the  colonial 
relation.  The  Colonies  paid  little  heed  to  the  charters  when 
those  documents  would  have  limited  them  in  the  exercise  of 
power,  although  they  insisted  strenuously  on  the  restrictions  to 
w'hich,  in  the  charters,  the  Crown  had  pledged  itself  in  dealing 
with  them,  but  the  Sovereign  had  really  no  reason  to  object  to 
the  mint,  except  on  account  of  the  prestige  of  coining  as  a 
sovereign  prerogative.  It  was  one  of  the  greatest  mistakes  in 

1  It  is  noteworthy  that  this  is  just  ten  pence  sterling. 

2  It  was,  at  this  time,  not  allowed  to  export  precious  metals  from  England. 
The  prohibition,  except  as  to  English  coin,  was  revoked  in  1663  (2  Ruding,  11). 

3  1  Hutchinson,  78.  4  1  Weeden,  191.  5  Drake,  Boston ,  329. 

6  Cal.  State  Bps.  Colon.,  1606,  33. 


254 


Yale  Review . 


[Nov. 


the  colonial  policy  of  England  that  a  colonial  mint  was  not 
allowed.  The  demands  of  the  King’s  Commissioners  in  1665 
are  all  in  the  interest  of  civil  liberty  and  the  rights  of  the 
oppressed,  except  their  demand  for  the  abolition  of  the  mint.1 
The  people  of  Massachusetts  Bay  had  shown  a  spirit  of  disre¬ 
gard  of  their  relation  to  the  mother  country,  and  had  far 
exceeded  their  powers  as  a  chartered  corporation.  The  mint 
was  regarded  as  an  overt  act  of  usurpation,  more  important  as 
a  proof  of  temper  and  purpose  than  in  itself.  A  legend  of  prob¬ 
ably  only  poetic  value  narrates  that  Sir  Thos.  Temple,  apologiz¬ 
ing  for  New  England,  told  the  King  that  the  pine  tree  was  the 
royal  oak,  whereat  the  King  laughed.2  Temple  narrated 
“merrily”  the  story  of  his  interview  with  the  King,  whatever 
it  was.3  The  Colony,  in  1678,  begged  the  King’s  indulgence 
for  the  mint  and  asked  him  to  prescribe  such  impress  for  the 
coins  as  he  pleased.  The  complaints  of  the  mint  during  the 
first  thirty  years  do  not  refer  so  much  to  its  constitutionality 
as  to  the  standard  of  its  work.  In  the  King’s  letters  to  the 
Colony,  1679  and  1680,  he  does  not  mention  it.  If  the  coins 
had  been  made  in  accordance  with  the  English  mint  ordinances, 
and  if,  after  the  Restoration,  the  King’s  effigy  had  been  put  on 
them,  it  appears  that  other  objections  would  have  been  regarded 
as  trivial.4  When  it  became  desirable  for  the  Crown  to  vacate 
the  charter,  in  view  of  the  political  system  which  had  been 
created  under  it,  contrary  to  its  purport,  the  mint  was  a  welcome 
addition  to  the  specifications  by  which  the  legal  proceedings 
could  be  supported. 

When  the  mint  was  established,  the  rating  of  the  piece  of 
eight  was,  as  we  have  seen,  five  shillings.  The  maximum 
weight  of  the  coin  fresh  from  the  mint  was  420  grains,  assumed 
to  be  of  sterling  alloy.  The  same  rating  was  repeated  in  1655. 
At  that  rating  there  was  an  advantage  in  taking  the  piece  of 
eight  to  the  mint  to  be  recoined,  under  the  new  law  for  the 
provincial  mint,  for  the  mint  charge  on  420  grains  was  31J4 

1  IV.  2.  Col.  Rec.,  213. 

t  2  The  King  was  in  the  oak  Sept.  6,  1652,  and  the  mint  law  was  passed  Oct.  26 
(3  Am.  Antiq.  Soc .,  293,  Ed.  note). 

3  I  Maine  Hist.  Soc.,  398. 


4  1  Hutchinson,  165. 


1898]  The  Coin  Shilling  of  Massachusetts  Bay.  255 

grains  or  5*4  pence  colonial.  The  full  piece  of  eight  would 
therefore  produce  at  the  mint  5s.  4d.  3L  colonial.  A  lighter  one, 
if  it  would  pass  at  five  shillings  colonial,  would  not  offer  so  much 
advantage.  The  point  of  indifference  or  equality  was  when  the 
piece  of  eight  weighed  389.18  grains  of  sterling  alloy.  Below 
that  weight,  if  it  would  pass  at  five  shillings,  there  would  be  a 
loss  in  having  it  recoined.  The  circulation  of  light  clipped 
coins  must  have  been  stopped  after  the  mint  was  established, 
probably  by  the  hearty  cooperation  of  the  public  with  the  policy 
under  which  the  mint  was  set  up,  for  otherwise  there  would 
have  been  no  large  recoinage  in  competition  with  the  clipped 
coinage.  The  mint  law  therefore  raised  the  coin  shilling  from 
what  it  had  been  under  the  clipped  coins  to  72/66.6  grains. 

The  mint  charge  was  not  abolished  in  England  until  1666.1 
It  was  a  preventive  of  exportation  from  America  while  it  lasted, 
and  assisted,  by  so  much,  the  people  of  Massachusetts,  in  what 
they  were  trying  to  do.  The  more  a  man  must  lose  on  his 
piece  of  eight  to  make  it  effective  in  the  English  market,  the 
more  he  was  willing  to  lose  to  make  it  effective  in  the  American 
market  before  exporting  it.  There  was  a  constant  tendency  to 
bring  into  the  circulation  at  five  shillings  each  those  pieces  of 
eight  which  were  just  below  the  point  at  which  there  was  neither 
gain  nor  loss  in  recoinage,  that  is,  just  at  and  below  sixteen 
pennyweights.  Such  were  by  far  the  greatest  number  of  the 
best  to  be  met  with.  The  heavier  pieces  were  culled  for  export. 

After  the  first  enthusiasm  in  favor  of  the  Massachusetts  coin 
had  passed  away,  the  motive  of  interest  had  its  way  unchecked 
to  realize  this  tendency.  “In  sundry  of  our  colonies  were 
enacted  laws  against  passing  of  light  pieces  of  eight.  These  % 
laws  not  being  put  into  execution,  heavy  and  light  pieces  of 
eight  passed  promiscuously,  and,  as  it  always  happens,  a  bad 
currency  drove  away  the  good  currency.  Heavy  pieces  of  eight 
were  shipped  off.  This  current  money  growing  daily  lighter, 
a  difference  was  made  between  heavy  money  which  became 
merchandize,  and  light  money,  in  which  they  paid  their  debts, 
gradually  [during  the  latter  half  of  the  century]  from  10,  15, 


1  2  Ruding,  12. 


256 


Yale  Review . 


[Nov. 


20,  to  25  per  cent.  .  .  .  This  was  another  and  continued 

course  of  cheating  their  creditors  and  employers  at  home.”1 

A  committee  of  the  General  Court  was  appointed,  in  1660, 
to  try  to  get  from  the  mint-master  a  payment  for  the  privilege 
he  enjoyed,  under  a  threat  to  contract  with  somebody  else.2 
This  committee  reported  that  the  gains  of  the  minters  were  £62 
on  every  £1,000.  The  total  mint  charge  was  £75  on  £1,000. 
The  wages  of  the  minters  are  evidently  here  counted  into  their 
“gains.”  The  committee  asked  Hull  to  pay  to  the  Colony 
one-twentieth  of  £62  per  £1,000.  He  refused,  probably  because 
he  saw  no  reason  to  surrender  the  advantage  of  a  natural 
monopoly,  but  he  offered  a  single  gift  of  £10.  This  the  com¬ 
mittee  refused,  but  the  General  Court,  more  thrifty  and  less 
haughty,  ordered  them  to  take  it.  Hull  made  a  great  fortune 
for  the  time,3  probably  not  altogether  from  the  mint.  Any 
man  who  understood  the  mysteries  of  coinage,  money  and  bul¬ 
lion  brokerage,  and  assaying,  had  a  greater  chance  of  gain  than 
any  other  person  in  the  Colonies  who  had  to  seek  it  by  industrial 
effort.  The  democratic  state  was  as  much  seduced  by  the 
“seigniorage”  to  be  won  from  coining  as  any  medieval  prince 
ever  was.  It  did  not  desire  to  abolish  the  excessive  mint 
charge.  The  following  year  it  repeated  the  attempt  to  get  a 
share  of  it.  It  was  hoped,  at  least,  that  rent  might  be  obtained 
for  the  house  and  plant,  but  the  attempt  failed.4 

Two-penny  pieces  were  added  to  the  coins  in  1662.  For  the 
first  year  £50  in  these  pieces  were  to  be  struck  for  every  £100 
coined,  and  for  the  six  years  following,  £20  for  every  £ioo.6 
Silver  was  quoted  in  1665  at  6s.  8d.  per  oz.,  and  gold  at  £5 
per  oz.6  The  ratio  would  be  15.13  to  1,  if  account  should  be 
taken  of  the  difference  in  fineness  of  the  two  medals  (gold 
.916.66),  but  disregarding  this,  as  the  colonists  seem  always  to 
have  done,  the  ratio  was  15  to  1,  and  gold  was  at  two  and  a  half 
silver  pence  per  grain,  silver  being  the  money. 

1  Overstone  Tract  of  1740.  2  IV.  1.  Col.  Tec.,  434  ;  3  Am.  Antiq.  Soc .,  291. 

3  1  Hutchinson,  165.  Probably  he  is  the  merchant  referred  to  by  Hutchinson 
( Bost.  Evg.  Post ,  Jan.  4,  1762)  as  having  died  possessed  of  a  fortune  of  ^30,000. 

4  IV.  2.  Col.  Tec.,  13.  *  5  Ibid. ,  51  ;  see  II.  2.  Mass.  Hist .  Soc.  Coll.,  274. 

e  1  Weeden,  316. 


1898]  The  Coin  Shilling  of  Massachusetts  Bay.  257 

The  abolition  of  the  mint  charge  in  England,  in  1666,  altered 
the  conditions  of  the  New  England  bullion  market  so  that  a 
less  unfavorable  rate  of  exchange  was  necessary  to  take  silver 
away.  If  we  may  make  use  of  Sir  Robert  Cotton’s  statement 
of  1626,  about  the  loss  of  value  on  a  piece  of  eight  in  London, 
to  assume  that  the  cost  of  freight,  insurance,  mint  charge,1  and 
brokerage  at  this  time  would  be  two  pence  sterling  per  piece 
of  eight  sent  from  Massachusetts,  then  the  effective  shilling  in 
London  for  such  a  shipper  would  be  96.34  grains.  As  we  have 
seen  above,  the  effective  shilling  in  Massachusetts  was  77.4 
grains.  The  exchange  rate  between  the  two  would  be  125 
colonial  for  100  sterling.  If  then  the  mint  charge  in  England 
was  abolished  and  the  effective  shilling  sterling  for  an  American 
shipper  of  pieces  of  eight  fell  to  93*33  grains,  the  rate  would  be 
120 colonial  for  100  sterling.  Consequently  exportation 
would  increase,  and  the  amount  of  metal  taken  to  the  Boston 
mint  would  diminish.  We  may  believe  that  this  effect  made 
the  mint  men  more  amenable,  for,  in  1667,  they  agreed  to  pay 
£40  within  six  months,  and  after  that  £10  per  annum,  for  seven 
years,  the  contract  being  renewed  for  that  period.2 

The  law  against  the  exportation  of  coin  was  renewed  in 
1669,  which  is  a  proof  that  exportation  was  going  on  at  a  rate 
to  renew  the  agitation  against  it.  Until  1670  the  Colony 
enjoyed  prosperity  under  free  trade.3  Then  attempts  began  to 
be  made  to  enforce  the  Navigation  Acts,  and  twenty  years  of 
strife  with  the  Crown  followed,  producing  hard  times.  These 
circumstances  led  to  numerous  projects  about  the  currency.  It 
was  provided,  in  1670,  that  specific  contracts  for  coin  or  mer¬ 
chandize  should  be  discharged  according  to  their  terms.4 

A  proposition  was  first  made  in  1669  to  repeal  the  law  which 
forbade  the  circulation  of  all  foreign  coin  except  English,  and 
to  make  pieces  of  eight  of  sterling  alloy  current  at  six  shillings 
each.5  It  was  not  until  1672,  however,  that  this  action  was 

1  The  mint  charge  was  two  shillings  per  pound,  which  would  be  1%  pence  on 
a  piece  of  eight  of  420  grains.  Of  course  the  assumption  here  made  is  not  true 
to  the  facts,  which  we  have  no  means  of  ascertaining.  It  is  only  made  in  order 
to  show  the  effect  of  abolishing  the  mint  charge. 

2  IV.  2.  Col .  Rec.,  333,  347  ;  3  Amer.  Antiq.  Soc.,  295.  3  1  Hutchinson,  269. 

4  Felt,  41.  5  Felt,  41. 


18 


258 


Yale  Review. 


[Nov. 


taken.  It  was  forced  by  the  change  in  the  adjustment  with  the 
English  market.  The  preamble  recites  that  “pieces  of  eight 
are  of  more  value  to  carry  out  of  the  country  than  they  will 
yield  to  mint  into  our  coin.”  Therefore,  it  was  ordered  that  all 
such  pieces  which  were  of  full  weight  and  good  silver,  “that  is 
six  shillings  of  New  England  money  of  Mexico,  Seville  and 
Pillar”  should  pass  for  six  shillings,  provided  that  they  were 
stamped  “NE.”  at  the  mint,  to  certify  that  they  were  of  due 
weight  and  alloy.  The  mint  charge  for  stamping  was  to  be 
four  pence  on  20  shillings,  one  penny  to  the  minter  and  three 
to  the  public  treasury.1  Pieces  of  eight  which  would  equal  six 
New  England  shillings  would  weigh  432  grains.  No  such 
pieces  ever  existed.  Accordingly,  later  in  the  session,  “foras¬ 
much  as  few  or  no  pieces  of  eight  are  of  that  weight,”  it  was 
enacted  that  any  pieces  of  eight  should  be  stamped  their  weight, 
and  should  pass  at  the  rate  of  6s.  8d.  per  oz.  Worn  pieces 
stamped  with  NE  and  figures  are  to  be  seen  in  collections.2 

The  charge  for  stamping  was  1/60  of  a  grain  per  grain.  A 
full  weight  dollar  (420  grains)  would  therefore  net  the  owner, 
when  stamped,  5s.  8^d.;  if  minted,  5s.  4^4d.  Any  piece  of 
eight  could  be  stamped  with  its  New  England  value,  and  be  so 
rendered  current,  for  per  cent,  of  its  value.  It  could  be 
minted  for  y]/2  per  cent,  of  its  value.  Evidently  none  would  be 
taken  to  the  mint.  Stamped  pieces  plus  the  stamp  expense 
made  73.2  grains  the  effective  shilling  instead  of  77.4  grains. 
The  new  metallic  par  with  sterling  was  126.9.  Crosby3  does 
not  believe  that  any  pieces  of  eight  ever  were  stamped  under 
this  law.  He  would  refer  the  specimens  seen  in  the  collections 
to  the  period  just  before  the  mint  was  founded.  The  calcula¬ 
tion  just  made  shows  that  he  must  be  in  error.  It  shows  a 
motive  which  would  be  sure  to  cause  coins  to  be  stamped.  A 
Peruvian  piece  of  eight  of  1652  has  been  described,4  which  is 
stamped.  It  was  found  in  a  buried  hoard  with  other  coins  of 
which  the  latest  date  was  1688.  This  law  of  1672  overthrew 
the  mint.  We  hear  more  and  more  complaints  that  it  does  not 
or  cannot  work.  Some  have  supposed  that  Andros  stopped  it. 

1  IV.  2.  Col.  Rec.,  533. 

3  Early  Coins  of  America,  81. 


2  3  Am.  Antiq.  Soc.,  296. 
4  2  Essex  Inst.,  254. 


1898]  The  Coin  Shilling  of  Massachusetts  Bay.  259 

Crosby  thinks  that  the  contract  was  not  renewed  in  1675. 
When  we  find  that  the  laws  and  conditions  would  cause  a  com¬ 
parative  loss  to  anyone  who  brought  silver  to  the  mint,  we  may 
be  sure  that  we  have  found  the  correct  explanation  of  its 
stoppage. 

The  contract  of  Hull  and  Sanderson  expired  in  1675.  A  com¬ 
mittee  was  appointed  to  treat  with  anybody  for  a  new  period, 
but  the  same  men  made  a  new  contract  for  seven  years  more. 
The  mint  charge  was  reduced  to  fifteen  pence  per  20  shillings, 
and  the  contractors  were  to  pay  £20  per  annum  for  their  privi¬ 
lege.  They  bought  the  mint  house.1  The  lowered  mint  charge 
was  equal  to  1/16  of  a  grain  per  grain,  or  Per  cent.  On  a 
420  grain  dollar  this  would  be  26 Rj  grains,  and  such  a  coin 
would  produce  at  the  mint  5s.  5%d.  New  Eng.  The  buying 
mint  price  was  6s.  3.28d.  per  oz.  and  the  cost  of  a  shilling  (72 
grains)  was  76.5  grains.  A  stamped  price  of  eight,  however, 
would  still  pass  current  as  before,  and  its  cost  was,  as  above, 
73.2  grains  per  shilling  of  72  grains.  This  combination,  with¬ 
out  bringing  any  metal  to  the  mint  more  than  before,  ensured 
export  or  clipping  of  the  New  England  shillings  and  importa¬ 
tion  of  base  or  clipped  dollars.  Very  little  attention  was  paid 
to  the  fineness  of  the  Spanish  coins,  which  now  became  uncer¬ 
tain.  Especially  the  Peruvian  dollars  were  a  cause  of  fraud  and 
annoyance.  We  must  also  not  lose  sight  of  the  barter  currency 
which  constantly  tended  to  degrade  the  coin.  At  the  time 
which  we  have  now  reached,  a  conventional  difference  of  one- 
third  was  recognized  between  money  and  “pay,”  in  the  pay¬ 
ment  of  taxes,  that  is,  one-third  off  barter  rates  gave  money 
rates.  This,  however,  in  private  transactions  meant  “pay  as 
money.”  It  was  necessary  to  substract  twenty-five  per  cent, 
more  to  get  coin  rates.2  If  a  minister’s  salary  was  £100,  he  was 
paid  in  grain  which  could  have  been  bought  in  the  market  for 
£50  in  silver.  Randolph  reported,  in  1676,  that  there  was  a 
reasonable  supply  of  silver  in  Massachusetts,  but  little  gold.3 

Various  projects  were  brought  forward  in  1678  to  prevent  the 
exportation  of  metal  and  to  cause  it  to  be  brought  to  the  mint, 

1  3  Am.  Antiq.  Soc 297.  2  Judd,  Hadley ,  210. 

3  Hutchinson  Pps.,  498. 


26o 


Yale  Review . 


[Nov.  I 

testifying  to  the  points  in  which  contemporary  experience  was 
unsatisfactory.  One  proposition  was  to  make  the  shilling  nine 
or  twelve  grains  lighter;  another  was  to  make  the  mint  free.1 
If  the  shilling  had  been  dropped  ten  grains,  the  mint  charge  on 
62  grains,  at  the  existing  rate,  would  have  been  t>7A  grains, 
making  the  effective  shilling  65%  grains.  Six  such  shillings 
would  be  395/4  grains;  or,  the  effect  would  be  the  same  as 
making  a  i6l/2  pennyweight  dollar  current  for  six  shillings  with¬ 
out  stamp.  Must  we  not  suspect  that  pieces  of  eight  of  this 
description,  or  lighter,  were  becoming  current,  by  the  toleration 
of  the  market,  for  six  shillings,  without  stamp,  and  that  the  first 
proposition  was  an  attempt  to  offset  them  by  a  shilling  which 
could  bear  the  existing  mint  charge  yet  not  cost  more  than 
they? 

The  Deputies  tried,  in  1679,  to  put  the  piece  of  eight  at  six 
shillings  without  stamp.  The  Council  refused.2  In  the  follow¬ 
ing  year  the  agitation  for  a  free  mint  was  renewed.3  In  a  peti¬ 
tion  to  this  end  it  is  said  that  the  loss  at  the  mint  is  6%  per  cent., 
and  that  there  is  no  gain  by  coinage,  for  “a  Spanish  cross  is  as 
good  as  a  New  England  pine.”  Those  who  can  hoard  or 
export  have  “something  more  than  the  mint  will  yield.”  These 
statements  from  their  experience  ratify  the  deductions  we  have 
made  as  to  the  necessary  effect  of  the  existing  laws  and  facts. 
The  inference  in  favor  of  a  free  mint  was  the  only  sound  conclu¬ 
sion,  but  it  does  not  seem  to  have  met  with  general  acceptance. 
Hull  said  that  the  coins  were  exported  because  they  were  too 
heavy.  He  favored  lowering  the  shilling  twelve  grains.  A 
good  piece  of  eight  would  then,  he  said,  be  worth  7  or  7J4 
pence  more.  The  calculation  shows  that  by  a  “good  piece” 
he  meant  one  of  420  grains.  He  thought  that  this  measure 
would  keep  the  dollars  in  New  England.  He  proposed  to 
divide  the  loss  on  debts  of  more  than  six  months  standing 
between  debtor  and  creditor,  and  to  throw  it  on  the  creditor  for 
more  recent  ones.  *, 

1  3  Amer.  Antiq.  Soc .,  2<^ ■ 

2  Cf.  1  Weeden,  326.  A  Frenchman  who  was  arrested  at  Boston,  in  1679,  had 
in  his  possession  tools  for  clipping  and  clippings  of  Massachusetts  coin  (Drake, 
Boston ,  437,  n.).  See  Dankers  &  Sluyter,  340,  378. 

3  Crosby,  109. 


1898]  The  Coin  Shilling  of  Massachusetts  Bay.  261 

Andros  tried  to  have  the  mint  allowed  and  he  did  obtain  per¬ 
mission  to  rate  foreign  coins.1 

Pieces  of  eight  were  rated,  in  1682,  at  6s.  8d.  per  oz.,  if  of 
sterling  standard,2  the  object  being,  once  more,  “to  keep  money 
in  the  country.”  This  was  the  year  in  which  the  current  con¬ 
tract  with  Hull  and  Sanderson  ended.  This  law  left  the  mint 
and  the  stamp  out  of  view,  and  we  hear  no  more  about  them. 
The  first  proposition  was  that  dollars  should  go  at  their  weight 
in  New  England  coin,  and  this  was  afterwards  explained  to 
mean  at  6s.  8d.  per  oz.3  A  full  piece  of  eight  (420  grains),  of 
sterling  alloy,  would  be  worth  at  this  rate  5s.  iod.,  not  six  shil¬ 
lings;  otherwise  stated,  if  420  grains  were  six  shillings,  silver 
was  at  6s.  io.28d.  per  oz.  The  law  of  1682  would  have  estab¬ 
lished  a  standard  by  weight,  not  by  tale,  72  grains  being  a  shil¬ 
ling,  but  no  effect  of  the  law  can  be  discovered,  partly  no  doubt 
because  of  the  inconvenience,  and  partly  because  current  pieces 
of  eight  of  420  grains  or  less  had  probably  become  current 
money  of  account  for  silver  debts  at  six  shillings,  so  that  this 
law  would  have  enhanced  debts. 

The  officers  of  the  English  mint,  in  their  report  of  1684  on 
the  New  England  coins,  said  that  the  mint  charge  was  one-third 
greater  than  had  ever  been  allowed  in  England.4  They  found 
the  New  England  coins  22^  per  cent,  below  sterling  of  the 
same  denomination,  and  recommended  that,  if  the  mint  was 
allowed  to  continue,  if  should  be  compelled  to  coin  sterling 
coins.  They  added  that  pence,  half-pence,  and  farthings  might 
be  made  of  tin  and  supplied  to  the  Colonies  to  the  profit  of  the 
royal  treasury.  An  almost  identical  report  was  made  on  Sir 

1  Chalmers,  Polit.  Annals ,  421,  440.  2  V.  Col.  Rec.,  573  ;  see  Crosby,  85. 

3  Whitmore,  Col.  Laws ,  292,  a,  294. 

4  The  seigniorage  in  England,  after  1601,  was  2s.  per  pound  of  silver,  except 

during  the  reign  of  James  I,  when  it  was  2s.  6d.  (1  Ruding,  90.)  Sir  Robert 

Cotton  (. Posthuma ,  285),  in  1626,  said  that  it  was  4s.  per  pound  weight  of  silver, 
in  England,  while  abroad  (Holland)  it  was  only  2s.  His  statement  requires 
explanations  which  we  do  not  possess.  Two  shillings  and  six  pence  sterling 
per  pound  weight  would  be  3.225  pence  New  England  per  oz.  The  New 
England  charge  was  at  first  6  pence  N.E.,  afterwards  5  pence,  per  oz.  Lowndes 
( Silver  Coins ,  127)  speaks  of  a  mint  charge,  in  1695,  of  is.  4>^d.  per  pound 
weight  of  silver  as  then  existing  in  England. 


262 


Yale  Review . 


[Nov. 

Wm.  Phipps’s  petition  to  the  new  government,  and  under  the 
new  charter,  in  1692,  for  the  grant  to  Massachusetts  of  the  privi¬ 
lege  of  coining.1 

The  reasons  alleged  by  Pres.  Dudley  and  the  Council,  in 
1686  (although  the  true  reasons  were  their  own  pecuniary 
interest),  for  permitting  Blackwell’s  bank  to  be  established,  were 
the  decay  of  trade  and  especially  the  exportation  of  silver  and 
the  scarcity  of  money.  Hence  they  argued  that  a  bank  was 
necessary  to  “provide  a  currency.”2 

When  Dunton  left  Boston,  1686,  he  carried  out  £400  in  silver 
in  his  trunk  without  apparent  fear  or  concealment.3  Randolph 
wrote,  1688,  “Some  would  have  all  pieces  of  eight,  tho  of  15 
pennyweights,  go  at  six  shillings  New  England,  others  at  17 
[pennyweights],  but  they  stand  at  17^2.  Our  money  goes  all 
away.”  This  shows  that  there  were  dollars  in  circulation  which 
were  as  light  as  fifteen  pennyweights,  and  also  some  which  were 
as  heavy  as  seventeen,  but  that  the  standard  was  dollars  of 
seventeen  and  a  half.  In  the  Proclamations  given  by  Ruding, 
rating  foreign  coins  for  circulation  in  Ireland,  during  the  last 
third  of  the  17th  century,  the  piece  of  eight  is  always  stated  as 
17  pennyweights.  Queen  Anne’s  Proclamation  of  1704  fixed 
the  dollar  of  17*4  pennyweights  at  six  shillings  as  the  standard, 
which  caused  great  complaint  in  the  Colonies,  because  it  was 
said  that  scarcely  one  could  be  met  with  in  the  circulation  which 
weighed  over  17.  It  is  of  the  first  importance  to  observe  that 
the  piece  of  eight  had  now  become,  in  Massachusetts  as  else¬ 
where,  the  standard  coin,  rated  at  six  shillings,  and  that  even 
if  it  weighed  173/2  pennyweights,  the  shilling  had  fallen  to 
70/64.75  grains.4  It  is  one  of  the  enigmas  of  the  history  that 
the  Colonists  treated  this  rate  and  6s.  8d.  per  ounce  as  equiva¬ 
lent.  The  metallic  par  of  the  70  grain  shilling  with  sterling 
was  132.71.  It  cannot  be  doubted  that  pieces  of  eight  of  17 
pennyweights  were  the  best  actually  current  at  six  shillings,  that 
is,  the  silver  shilling  of  account  was,  before  1690,  not  better  than 
68/62.9  grains;  par  with  sterling  silver  coins  136.6. 

1  Cal.  Treas.  Pps.,  Ed.  Redington,  214.  2  Felt,  46. 

3  Letters  from  New  Eng .,  303. 

4  Wait  Winthrop,  1699,  speaks  of  the  “difference  between  New  England 
money  and  the  current  coin  here”  [Boston]  (IV.  8.  Mass.  Hist.  Soc.  Coll.,  569). 


1898]  The  Coin  Shilling  of  Massachusetts  Bay.  263 

A  fierce  law  against  clipping,  filing,  and  rounding  was  passed 
in  1692,  proving  the  activity  of  these  operations.  No  unclipped 
New  England  coins  could  circulate  under  the  circumstances 
just  described.  Such  coin  was  to  circulate  “at  the  rate  it  was 
stamped  for,”  that  is,  if  it  had  been  coined  originally  as  a  shil¬ 
ling,  it  was  to  be  a  shilling;  if  as  a  sixpence,  a  sixpence.  A  piece 
of  eight  of  17  pennyweights  was  to  be  six  shillings;  that  is,  the 
law  accepted  and  recognized  the  usage  of  the  market,  and  puts 
it  beyond  a  doubt  what  that  usage  was.  This  law  was  dis¬ 
allowed  by  the  English  authorities,  because  the  penalties  in  it 
for  clipping,  etc.,  were  not  the  same  as  those  for  the  same  officers 
in  English  law.  Such  was  the  interpretation  put  upon  the 
provision  that  the  laws  of  the  Colony  must  conform  to  those 
of  England.1  The  law,  so  far  as  concerned  the  rating  of  the 
piece  of  eight,  was  reenacted  and  approved  in  1697.2  The 
shilling  under  it  was  68/62.9.  This  Act  is  one  of  the  most 
important  in  the  history.  It  set  a  definition,  at  last,  by  weight, 
for  Massachusetts,  of  a  shilling  in  the  piece  of  eight;  uncer- 
tanity  remaining,  nevertheless,  as  to  the  fineness,  which  was 
assumed  to  be  sterling.  It  took  up  and  made  lawful  a  state  of 
things  which  had  existed,  in  all  probability,  by  the  custom  of 
the  market,  since  1685.  This  law  and  this  definition  of  a  shil¬ 
ling  were  the  point  of  departure  for  the  following  period  (1690- 
1736),  during  which  clipping  of  silver  and  over-issues  of  paper 
produced  inflation  and  confusion.  As  we  shall  see  below,  a 
concurrence  of  facts  and  legislation  brought  this  definition  once 
more  into  validity,  as  the  standard  of  reference,  and  it  remained 
such  from  1737  through  the  rest  of  the  colonial  period.  “Good 
and  lawful  money  of  this  Province,”  wrote  Gov.  Belcher  to  the 
Lords  of  Trade,  in  1739,  “is  seventeen  pennyweights  for  six 
shillings.”3 

The  law  of  1697  had  other  important  consequences,  partly 
political.  The  home  authorities  having  allowed  it  to  stand, 
the  Attorney  General4  advised  them  that  they  were  estopped 
from  making  any  regulations  in  regard  to  colonial  currencies 
inconsistent  with  it.  Therefore,  when  discussing  the  policy  to 

1  A  similar  decision,  i  Penn.  Coll.  Rec.,  418.  2  1  Prov.  Laws ,  70,  296. 

3  IV.  7.  Mass.  Hist.  Soc.  Col.,  225.  4  Chalmers,  Currencies ,  14. 


264 


Yale  Review. 


[Nov. 


be  adopted  in  the  Proclamation  of  1704,  they  considered  that 
they  were  not  free  to  introduce  the  sterling  standard,  which 
otherwise  they  would  have  done.1  This  exaggerated  scruple, 
and  the  ridiculously  wrong-headed  policy  to  which  it  led, 
especially  when  compared  with  the  reason  for  disallowing  the 
law  of  1692,  illustrate  well  the  faults  of  the  colonial  administra¬ 
tion.  It  could  not  have  cost  more  effort  to  persuade  Massa¬ 
chusetts  to  revise  her  law  of  1697  than  to  accept  the  prescrip¬ 
tions  of  the  Proclamation,  which  she  never  did!  In  fact  the 
English  authorities  did  violate  the  law  of  1697,  for  they  raised 
the  standard  to  six  shillings  for  seventeen  and  a  half  penny¬ 
weights.  For  reasons  which  will  appear  below,  the  sterling 
standard,  with  due  provision  for  outstanding  contracts,  would 
have  been  clear  and  simple,  and  would  have  had  far  better 
chances  of  success  than  the  measure  which  was  adopted. 

The  law  against  the  exportation  of  silver  was  renewed,  in 
1697,  for  three  years,2  and  energetic  efforts  were  made  to 
enforce  it,  but  it  did  not  put  a  stop  to  complaints  of  the 
scarcity  of  money.3  In  1699  the  pieces  of  eight  in  Rhode 
Island  were  clipped  down  to  13  or  14  pennyweights.4  There 
was  a  proposition,  in  1 700-1,  to  rate  gold  at  3  pence  per  grain 
and  silver  at  7s.  per  oz.  It  failed.  It  would  have  introduced 
a  gold  currency  (17.3  to  1),  unless,  as  probably  would  have 
happened,  the  piece  of  eight,  current  at  6s.,  had  run  down  to 
15  pennyweights,  i.  e.,  silver  at  8s.  per  oz.  (15.137  to  1).  In 
1703,  the  penalty  for  clipping  or  counterfeiting  the  Queen’s 
coin  was  made  death;  for  the  same  abuse  of  any  coin  current 
in  the  Colony,  the  pillory,  ear-cropping,  and  flogging.  The 
state  of  the  coinage  was  so  bad  that,  in  1704,  a  committee  was 
appointed  to  report  “what  expedients  they  think  will  best 
remedy  and  reform  the  ill  state  of  the  coin.”  Inasmuch  as  they 
never  reported,  it  appears  that  they  could  find  none. 

1  1  Penn  and  Logan  Corresp .,  248.  2  1  Prov.  Laws ,  306. 

3  IV.  8.  Mass.  Hist.  Soc.  Coll.,  569. 

4  Rider’s  Reprint  Laws  1636-1705,  p.  45. 


1898]  The  Coin  Shilling  of  Massachusetts  Bay.  265 

We  must  now  turn  our  attention,  for  a  moment,  to  the 
English  currency  of  the  latter  part  of  the  seventeenth  century, 
since  the  relation  of  the  colonial  currency  to  it  was  of  the  first 
importance  to  the  colonial. 

After  1660,  the  misrating  of  gold  and  silver  in  England  led 
to  the  clipping  and  export  of  silver,  and  a  gold  currency  for 
that  country.  By  1695,  the  current  silver  coin  was  clipped 
down  nearly  to  one-half  its  due  weight.1  Hammered  coins  were 
still  in  circulation,  and  it  took  repeated  acts  of  legislation  in  the 
following  years  to  put  an  end  to  them.  A  recoinage  took 
place,  in  1696,  but  the  misrating  of  the  guinea  (it  was  to  be  22s. 
after  April  10,  1696)2  still  caused  exportation  of  the  silver 
coins.  This  was  a  protection  to  the  Colonies,  to  a  certain 
extent,  against  an  exportation  of  their  silver.  Guineas  were 
worth  about  20^4  shillings  of  legal  weight  and  fineness  each, 
but  were  rated  at  22  shillings.  Taking  a  piece  of  eight  as 
equivalent  to  4^2  s.,  45/9  pieces  were  equal  to  a  guinea,  but  it 
took  4  8/9  pieces  to  pay  a  guinea.  Therefore  they  were 
clipped  or  melted.  Copper  coins  were  also  issued  to  excess, 
1699  to  1 70 1. 3  Since,  then,  we  find  the  silver  coins  of  England 
down  to  7s.  per  oz.  just  before  the  recoinage,  and  Massachusetts 
silver  at  7s.  per  oz.  by  the  law  of  1697,  the  silver  shillings  of 
the  two  countries  were,  at  that  juncture,  equal;  the  deprecia¬ 
tion  of  the  silver  currencies  in  the  two  countries  was  the  same. 
But  the  money  of  account  of  England  was  guineas,  rated,  in 
1696,  at  22s.  each.  The  ratio  of  the  metals  was  probably  15 
to  1  or  14^4  to  1,  as  Sir  Isaac  Newton  found  it  in  1717.4 
Soetbeer’s  figures  for  the  Hamburg  market  are:  1696,  15  to  1; 
1700,  14.81  to  1;  1701-10,  average,  15.27  to  1.  At  15  to  1,  the 
guinea  was  worth  20.711s.  Only  gold  was  brought  to  the 
mint.  In  1696,  the  mint  was  closed  against  gold  for  nine 
months  in  an  effort  to  turn  the  tide.5  The  current  shilling  of 
account  in  England  was,  therefore,  one  twenty-second  of  a 
guinea,  5.88/5.39  grains.  In  the  last  years  of  the  century  the 
guinea  was  rated,  by  the  usage  of  the  market,  at  21s.  6d.  A 

1  Lowndes,  Silver  Coins ,  87,  107.  2  According  to  7  and  8  Wm.  Ill,  c.  xix. 

3  Montagu,  Copper ,  Tin  arid  Bronze  Coinage ,  76. 

4  7  Pari.  Hist.,  526.  6  2  Ruding,  46. 


266  Yale  Review.  [Nov. 

shilling  was  then  6.02/5.51  grains.  In  1717,  by  royal  Proc¬ 
lamation,  the  guinea  was  rated  at  21s.;  a  shilling  was 
6.163/5.65.  The  guinea  shilling,  as  it  existed  from  1700  to 
1717,  was  equal,  at  15  to  1,  to  90.3  grains  sterling  silver; 
at  I5l4  1°  E  to  91.8  grains.  In  all  operations  of  exchange, 
American  silver  money  had  to  be  compared  with  English  gold 
money,  or  with  this  silver  shilling,  which,  at  the  market  rate, 
was  the  equivalent  of  it.  To  this  then,  we  must  return  below, 
but  now  we  can  see  that  it  was  the  universal  degradation  of 
the  silver  coin,  and  its  unequal  degradation  in  different  places, 
which  led  to  the  numerous  projects  of  reform  put  forward  in 
the  first  years  of  the  century,  most  of  which  emanated  from  the 
Colonies,  and  were  in  their  interest,  but  were  received  with 
serious  attention  in  England,  amongst  which  was  a  project 
for  a  colonial  mint.  This  agitation  led  to  the  Queen’s  Proc¬ 
lamation  of  1704. 

Sir  Isaac  Newton  attended  the  Board  of  Trade,  May  26,  1704, 
to  answer  questions  about  the  value  of  foreign  coins.  He  said 
that  the  table  of  values1  which  he  submitted  was  not  intended 
to  be  published  in  the  Proclamation,  but  was  a  guide  for  fixing 
ratings  in  the  Plantations.  He  promised  to  compute  the  rat¬ 
ings  of  the  different  coins  in  proportion  to  the  Seville  piece 
of  eight.  On  June  23d,  he  submitted  such  computations,  but 
the  Proclamation  was  dated  June  18.2 

It  was  prescribed  in  the  document  that  a  17B2  pennyweight 
piece  of  eight,  worth  4s.  6d.  sterling,  should  be  six  shillings 
colonial.  This  prescription  admitted  of  three  interpretations. 
(1)  A  1734  pennyweight  coin,  if  worth  4s.  6d.  sterling,  would 
not  be  .925  fine,  but  .920.833.  It  was  assumed,  however,  in 
the  colonies  that  “Spanish  plate”  was  of  sterling  alloy.  If  17^2 
pennyweights,  assumed  sterling,  was  six  shillings,  one  shilling 
colonial  was  70  grains  sterling,  but  there  was  no  coin  corre¬ 
sponding  to  that  or  its  multiples.  Weighing  and  assaying 
must  have  been  constantly  repeated.  (2)  A  coin  of  sterling 
alloy  worth  4s.  6d.  sterling  would  weigh  418.06/386.7  grains, 
and  a  colonial  shilling,  if  deduced  from  this  stipulation,  would  be 

1  This  seems  to  be  the  table  which  is  printed,  23  Gentleman' s  Mag.,  6  (1753). 

2  17  Board  of  Trade  Journals,  sub  dates. 


267 


1 898]  The  Coin  Shilling  of  Massachusetts  Bay. 

\ 

69.676/64.45  grains.  There  was  no  coin  corresponding  to  this. 
In  calculations  it  could  be  conveniently  employed,  since  it 
meant  that  colonial  was  three-fourths  of  sterling.  (3)  The 
easiest  interpretation,  and  the  one  which  became  popular,  was 
that  a  piece  of  eight  was  six  shillings.  This  left  the  definition 
of  a  shilling  at  the  mercy  of  the  fidelity  and  accuracy  of  the 
Spanish  mints.  The  Proclamation  therefore  simply  added 
new  elements  of  confusion  and  complication.  On  the  first 
interpretation  silver  was  6s.  io.28d.  per  ounce;  sterling  par 
132.71.  On  the  second,  silver  was  6s.  10.63d.  per  ounce;  ster¬ 
ling  par  1333/3.  On  the  third,  the  values  were  changing  from 
time  to  time. 

Queen  Anne’s  Proclamation  of  June  18,  1704,  was  received 
in  Boston  in  November.  Its  leading  motive  was  stated  in  the 
document  itself  to  be  to  remedy  the  inconveniences  arising  from 
the  different  rating  of  coins  in  the  Colonies  “by  the  indirect 
practice  of  drawing  the  money  from  one  Plantation  to 
another.”1  But  few  in  Europe  or  America  were  then  emanci¬ 
pated  from  the  notion  which  here  finds  expression,  that  one 
state  could  draw  coins  from  another  by  rating  them  at  a  greater 
number  of  shillings,  livres,  kreutzer,  etc.2  The  Proclamation 
rated  silver  coins  only.  An  attempt  was  made,  in  Massa¬ 
chusetts,  to  pass  a  law  which  should  enforce  it,  yet  not  over¬ 
throw  the  existing  system  established  by  the  law  of  1697;  but 
this  was  impossible.  The  Council  wanted  to  comply  with  the 
Proclamation;  the  House  wanted  to  maintain  the  Massachu¬ 
setts  usage.  Hence  no  act  could  be  passed,  but,  March  3, 
1704-5,  a  Resolution  was  adopted  that  the  matter  should  be 
regulated  by  a  Proclamation  of  the  Governor.  As  to  the  terms 
of  this,  however,  the  same  dispute  arose.  It  was  proposed  that 
coins  of  full  weight  should  circulate  on  the  terms  of  the  Queen’s 
Proclamation,  and  that  all  deficient  coins  should  be  rated  by 
weight  at  7s.  per  ounce.  This  would  have  made  two  incon¬ 
sistent  rates  in  the  same  document,  for  the  rates  of  the  Queen’s 

•  Proclamation  were  6s.  10.63d.  per  ounce,  and  the  clipped  bits 
would  have  been  the  only  currency,  all  the  more  seeing  that 
they  were  not  of  sterling  alloy.  It  was  at  last  agreed  that,  until 


1  Cf.  Chalmers,  Currency,  13. 


*  Ibid.,  7. 


268 


Yale  Review . 


[Nov. 

It 

May,  bits  should  pass  at  the  rate  of  the  Queen’s  Proclamation, 
but  the  Governor’s  Proclamation,  as  published,  says  that  full 
weight  coins  shall  circulate  at  “due  weight  according  to  Her 
Majesty’s  Proclamation  and  the  laws  of  this  Province,”  thus 
really  embodying  the  contradiction.  In  the  following  June,  a 
committee  was  appointed  by  the  Council  to  “report  what  they 
shall  think  proper  to  be  done  by  this  Court  [for  the  annexing 
of  penalties  on  such  as  shall  offer  money  by  tale  under  due 
weight,  and  further  for  the  reforming  of  the  money].”  The 
House  amended  by  striking  out  the  words  in  brackets  and  sub¬ 
stituting:  “for  the  reforming  of  the  money  and  rendering  the 
law  effectual  to  prevent  the  debasing  thereof.”  The  commit¬ 
tee  recommended  that  the  Governor’s  Proclamation  should  be 
approved  and  reiterated  without  limitation  of  time,  “saving  all 
past  particular  contracts,”  and  that  skilled  persons  should  be  em¬ 
ployed  to  make  a  table  of  “proportion  of  coins  and  silver  of  ster¬ 
ling  alloy  by  the  oz.  troy  to  the  weight  of  a  penny.”  The  Coun¬ 
cil  added  that,  except  for  special  contracts,  if  the  debtor  offered 
bills  of  credit,  “all  process  in  the  law  shall  be  stayed  against 
every  such  debtor  by  the  space  of  twelve  months,  and  then  pro¬ 
ceed.”1  No  action  was  taken,  for  it  would  have  been  necessary  to 
agree  on  the  weight  of  a  penny,  and  the  same  old  effort  to  say 
that  the  same  quantity  was  at  the  same  time  both  3  and  4  would 
have  been  renewed.  There  the  legislative  action  ended,  and 
the  Queen’s  Proclamation  never  was  enforced  or  obeyed.  Gov¬ 
ernor  Dudley,  reporting  to  the  Board  of  Trade,  1705,  referred 
back  to  the  law  of  1697  which  made  17  pennyweights  to  be 
6  shillings,  and  said  that  it  was  “pretty  well  observed,  so  that 
I  thought  I  had  little  to  do,  only,  in  obedience  to  Her  Majesty’s 
Proclamation,  to  add  the  half-penny”  [weight],  i.  e.  to  make 
the  I7J4  pennyweight  piece  of  eight  to  be  6  shillings  instead 
of  the  17  pennyweight  piece.  He  called  on  the  Court  to  enforce 
the  Queen’s  Proclamation,  but  “could  not  obtain  so  much  as  a 
committee  upon  that  affair  until  I  would  leave  out  the  word 
‘penalties.’  ”  The  Court  passed  a  tax  at  eight  shillings  per  oz. 
[which  is  proof  that  the  real  current  rate  in  1705  was  not 
higher.]  He  refused  his  assent,  and  there  was  a  deadlock  for 

4  Crosby,  121  ;  8  Acts  and  Resolves ,  no,  118,  471. 


1 898]  The  Coin  Shilling  of  Massachusetts  Bay.  269 

five  weeks.  Then  they  granted  the  tax  at  17  pennyweights  for 
six  shillings,  but  would  do  nothing  to  enforce  the  Proclamation 
or  to  lay  a  penalty  for  the  violation  of  it,  “and  thereby  the 
country  will  be  emboldened  to  use  their  late  way  of  payment  at 
15  pennyweights  [8s.  per  ounce],  though  I  shall  take  care  that 
the  courts  and  officers  of  receipt  keep  steady  and  allow  of  no 
legal  payment  but  by  due  weight.”1  Here  is  explicit  testimony 
that,  by  1705,  the  current  shilling  of  the  market  was  down  to 
60  grains;  metallic  par  with  sterling  silver  coin,  155.  The 
clipping  had  gone  on  with  great  rapidity  since  1697.  In  eight 
years  it  had  raised  silver  one  shilling  per  ounce,  i.  e.  the  silver 
money  of  account  had  depreciated  12^2  per  cent. 

In  fact  it  had  depreciated  more  than  this.  This  was  only  the 
officially  acknowledged  depreciation.  At  Boston,  as  at  New 
York  (where  it  was  worse),  or  at  Philadelphia  (where  it  was 
still  worse),  the  circulating  medium  in  the  market  was  frag¬ 
ments  of  Spanish  coin.  In  November,  1705,  Keeling  got 
judgment  against  Lillie  for  £294.  Lillie  tendered  to  him  5625 
reals  in  a  bag,  being  quarters  and  eighths  of  a  dollar,  by  tale, 
at  8  pence  per  real;  total,  £187  is.  [Even  at  8  shillings  per 
ounce,  or  a  15  pennyweight  dollar  for  6s.,  the  real  should  have 
been  9d.  Inasmuch  as  the  defendant  tendered  reals  at  8d.  it  is 
evident  that  the  bits  in  the  market  were  worn  and  clipped  even 
below  the  rating  of  8s.  per  oz.,  by  at  least  11  per  cent.  From 
other  data  given  below  we  can  deduce  that  a  payment  in  them 
would  render  only  328  grains  for  a  dollar,  six  shillings;  or  54^ 
grains  for  a  shilling;  rate,  8s.  g^$d.  per  oz.]  Lillie  tendered 
for  the  rest  of  the  debt  full  coins  at  6s.  for  17  pennyweights, 
which  were  accepted,  although  2.86  per  cent,  below  Proclama¬ 
tion.  The  sheriff  objected  to  the  reals  that  some  were  Peru¬ 
vian  and  some  clipped  [so  that  they  were  even  below  the  above 
calculation],  and  he  took  the  order  of  the  court,  which  was 
that  the  mass  should  be  weighed  and  valued  at  6s.  for  17  penny¬ 
weights.  It  proved  deficient  £17  18s.  6d.  or  nearly  ten  per 
cent.,  which  the  defendant  was  compelled  to  pay.  He  appealed 
to  the  Legislature  by  petition,  and  the  House  resolved  that 
“ reals  at  8d.,  qualified  as  the  law  directs  [unclipped  and  ster- 


1  1  Prov .  Laws ,  579  ;  4  Doc.  Coll.  Hist.,  N.  ¥.,  1131. 


270 


Yale  Review. 


[Nov. 


ling],  are  a  legal  tender  to  pass  by  tale,  which  are  to1  be  judged 
by  the  eye  and  not  by  the  scale,  the  law  assigning  no  weight 
to  them.”  [There  was  no  law  about  them.]  The  House 
further  desired,  if  in  any  way  practicable,  to  undo  the  transac¬ 
tion  dictated  by  the  Court.  The  Council  took  no  action.1 

We  may  now  recapitulate  the  definitions  of  the  coin  shilling, 
including  the  interpretations  of  the  Proclamation,  of  which  the 
first  rating  of  1705  would  fall  under  the  third. 


Silver  per  oz.  Shilling.  Sterling  par  in  silver. 

1652 .  6s.  8d.  72  grs.  sterling.  129 

1697 .  7s.  68  136.6 

1704 . 1)  6s.  io.28d.  70  132.71  \ 

1704  . 2)  6s.  io.65d.  69.677  133.33  [■  Proclamation 

1705  . 3)  8s.  60  155  )  Current  dollars  at  6s. 

1705 .  8s.  q3/&d.  54 %  170  “  bits. 


The  reasons  for  the  failure  of  the  Proclamation  are  here 
evident.  The  actual  money  of  account  was  at  most  the  first 
rating  under  1705.  The  Proclamation  would  have  raised  it 
one-sixth.  Yet  everything  goes  to  show  that,  if  the  standard 
had  been  set  at  sterling,  especially  with  a  mint,  and  with  a 
provision  that  52  new  shillings  should  pay  96  shillings  of  out¬ 
standing  debts,  the  reform  would  have  succeeded.  Public  feel¬ 
ing  was  favorable  to  a  real  or  well-planned  reform. 

As  we  saw,  above,  the  English  gold  shilling  in  1704  was 
equal,  at  15  to  1,  to  90.3  grains  sterling;  at  15J4  to  1,  to  90.8 
grains.  Against  the  former  of  these  the  60  grain  Massachu¬ 
setts  shilling  gave  a  metallic  par  of  150J4;  against  the  latter,  of 
153.  Any  depreciation  of  the  bills  of  credit  must  be  reckoned 
from  this  par  as  a  base.  Douglass2  quotes  exchange  at  150 
when  silver  was  at  8s.  per  oz.,  that  is,  at  eight  of  the  then  cur¬ 
rent  silver  shillings.  The  bills  of  credit  read:  “This  bill  shall 
be  equal  to  money.”  What  was  money?  It  was  this  coin 
shilling  whose  variations  we  have  been  studying.  The  bills 
showed  no  depreciation  until  1712,  because  the  metallic  shil- 

1  8  Acts  and  Resolves,  595. 

2  1  Summary ,  494.  Cf.  Davis,  33  Proc.  Amer.  Acad .  of  Arts  and  Sci .,  208. 
Dr.  Belknap’s  table  of  depreciation  for  New  Hampshire  gives,  as  the  price  of 
silver:  1700,10s.;  1704,7s.;  1705,  10s.;  1710,  8s.;  1711  8s.  4d.;  1712,  8s.  6d. 
(5  N.  H.  Hist.  Soc.  Coll.,  258.) 


1898]  The  Coin  Shilling  oj  Massachusetts  Bay.  271 

ling  was  depreciating,  between  1690  and  1712,  from  68  grains 
to  60  grains.  Then  more  of  them  were  needed,  so  that  paper 
could  depreciate  1 2^4  per  cent,  from  its  point  of  departure 
before  it  showed  any  depreciation  at  all. 

The  courts  of  Massachusetts,  in  1708,  “chancered”  silver  at 
8s.  per  oz.  in  the  settlement  of  debts.  This  rate  was  the 
standard  of  justice,  truth  and  right  in  New  England  and  New 
York  behind  the  paper  inflation  of  the  next  thirty  years.1 
Under  it  a  shilling  was  60/55.5  grains. 

In  the  evolution  of  the  paper-money  system  in  Massachusetts, 
the  point  was  reached,  in  1736,  at  which  bills  of  a  “new  tenor” 
were  issued.  A  bill  of  so  many  shillings  was  not  now  declared 
on  its  face  to  be  “equal  in  value  to  money,”  but  equal  in  value 
to  such  a  weight  of  silver  (at  the  rate  of  20s.  for  3  oz.),  or  to 
gold  coin  at  the  rate  of  £4  18s.  per  oz.  The  specification  by 
tale  having  been  abused  until  it  was  no  longer  available  (no  one 
knew  what  “money”  was),  recourse  was  had  to  a  specification 
by  weight,  and  the  specification  employed  was  the  pine-tree 
rate,  not  proclamation,  although  the  former  was  nearly  three 
per  cent,  higher  than  the  latter.  The  silver  shilling  was  once 
more  72/66.6  grains.  The  gold  shilling  under  the  Act  was 
4.89/4.489  grains.  The  ratio  is  14.84  to  1.  Soetbeer  gives 
the  ratio  for  Hamburg,  at  this  time,  as  15  to  1  and  silver  rose 
for  the  next  ten  years.  Probably  silver  was  higher  in  America 
than  in  Western  Europe,  being  preferred.  The  rate  may  have 
been  taken  from  the  market. 

In  1728  “milled”  dollars  began  to  be  made  at  the  Spanish 
mints  in  America.  By  law  they  should  have  weighed 
417.65/382.5  grains  each,  fineness  being  now,  by  law,  .916.66. 
A  test,  in  1765,2  showed  that  they  contained  only  377.4  grains 
fine.  It  is  not  probable  that  they  were  as  bad  as  that  immedi¬ 
ately  after  1728,  but  when  they  reached  that  point,  each  was 
equal  to  a  sterling  coin  408/377.4  grains.  The  intention  in 
adopting  the  “new  tenor”  was  to  go  back  to  “lawful  money,” 
which  would  be  proclamation.  Why  they  revived  the  pine-tree 
rate,  and  so  multiplied  confusion,  is  inexplicable.  In  practice, 
proclamation,  or  lawful,  money  always  meant  a  piece  of  eight  for 


1  4  Doc.  Col.  Hist.,  N.  Y.,  1134. 


2  Chalmers,  Colonial  Currencies,  409. 


272 


Yale  Review. 


[Nov 


six  shillings.  The  new  “milled”  dollars  came  to  be  specified 
as  the  standard  of  this  “lawful  money,”  at  the  same  time  that 
the  pine-tree  rate  was  specified  also,  although  a  shilling  by  the 
latter  was  72/66.6  grains  and  by  the  former  68/62.9  grains, 
if  we  adopt  the  mint  test  as  the  true  description  of  the  dollars 
in  circulation.  Now  appears,  however,  the  interesting  and 
important  fact,  of  which  anticipatory  mention  was  made  above, 
that,  as  a  result  of  these  illogical  proceedings  and  the  false  work 
of  the  Spanish  mints,  the  coin  shilling  had  once  more  come  to 
be,  what  it  was  by  the  law  of  1697,  62.9  grains  of  pure  silver. 

In  1744  the  bills  of  credit  were  changed  again  by  reducing 
by  one-eighth  the  amount  of  silver  and  gold  put  for  a  given 
number  of  shillings.  Against  20s.  was  set  2j^  ounces  of  sil¬ 
ver,  or  gold  at  the  rate  of  £5  10s.  3d.  This  was  7s.  6d.  per  oz. 
for  silver.  The  silver  shilling  was  64/59.2  grains,  and  the  gold 
shilling  4.35/3.99  grains,  ratio  14.837  to  1.  This  law  left  little 
trace  upon  the  history,  being  swept  away  in  the  flood  of  depre¬ 
ciation  which  immediately  followed.1 

At  the  resumption  of  specie  payments,  in  1749,  it  was  enacted 
that  the  money  of  account  should  be  silver  at  6s.  8d.  per  oz., 
“and  all  Spanish  milled  pieces  of  eight  of  full  weight  shall  be 
accounted,  taken  and  paid  at  the  rate  of  six  shillings  per  piece.” 
In  order  that  these  two  stipulations  should  be  equivalent,  the 
piece  of  eight  must  have  weighed  432  grains  of  sterling  alloy. 
No  dollar  ever  had  weighed  so  much  and  no  dollar  then  exist¬ 
ing  was  up  to  sterling  standard.  The  first  provision  was  there¬ 
fore  nullified  by  the  second,  for  the  only  money  of  account 
would  be  the  piece  of  eight.  What  then  was,  by  weight  and 
assay,  the  piece  of  eight  which  was  current  at  that  time  and 
which  was  in  fact  and  practice  the  thing  referred  to?  We 
have  noticed  above  the  Spanish  mint  law  of  1728,  by  which  the 
piece  of  eight  should  have  been  417.65/382.5,  and  the  mint 
test  of  1765  by  which  it  contained  only  377.4  grains  fine.  In 
the  whole  contemporary  literature  of  the  Colonies  only  two 
statements  are  to  be  found  which  testify  what  the  piece  of  eight 

1  The  new  tenor  of  New  Hampshire  was  then  on  a  basis  of  6s.  8d.  per  oz. ; 
that  of  Mass.  7s.  6d.;  that  of  R.  I.  6s.  gd.;  that  of  Conn.  8s. 


1898]  The  Coin  Shilling  of  Massachusetts  Bay.  273 

* 

was  in  fact,  1750-60.1  (1)  In  the  controversy  of  1762, 2 

Hutchinson  said  that  a  piece  of  eight  weighed  417  grains. 
(2)  In  a  law  of  Connecticut,  of  175 5, 3  it  is  provided  that  bills  of 
credit  shall  be  redeemed  at  58s.  8d.  per  oz.  of  silver  or  £42  per 
oz.  of  gold.  The  true  ratio  is  14.448  to  1;  disregarding  the 
difference  in  standard  of  the  two  metals,  it  is  14.318  to  1.  After 
the  bills  were  redeemed,  this  law  ordained  that  a  piece  of  eight 
should  be  six  shillings  and  an  ounce  of  gold  £5.  Using  the 
ratio  previously  obtained,  we  can  compute  that  the  piece  of 
eight  they  had  in  hand  must  have  contained  381.427  grains  of 
pure  silver  on  the  former  ratio,  or  377.995  on  the  latter.  Inas¬ 
much  as  the  latter  coincides  more  nearly  with  our  other  infor¬ 
mation,  we  accept  it  as  more  probably  correct,  i.  e.,  the  Colo¬ 
nists  disregarded  the  difference  in  fineness  of  the  metals,  and 
derived  the  ratio  from  the  gross  weights.  The  shilling  which 
was  one-sixth  of  a  piece  of  eight  containing  377.4  or  377.9 
grains  of  pure  silver  would  be  62.9  grains  pure;  68  grains  ster¬ 
ling;  and  the  piece  of  eight  corresponding  to  it  would  be  just 
17  pennyweights  sterling  alloy.  Those  which  were  current 
weighed  417  grains,  but  were  of  baser  alloy.  The  investigation 
must  be  regarded  as  having  reached  a  conclusive  result.  The 
silver  shilling,  derived  from  the  piece  of  eight  in  the  middle  of 
the  century,  was  62.9  grains  of  fine  silver,  coinciding  with  the 
shilling  which  we  have  met  with  twice  above. 

The  next  step  was  the  very  important  Act  of  1750, 4  the 
motive  of  which  was  the  apprehension  lest  coins  “might  rise 
above  their  real  value  as  proportionate  to  Spanish  milled  pieces 
of  eight  at  six  shillings.”  All  the  current  gold  and  silver  coins 
were  rated  by  taking  up  again  the  rule  that  proclamation  means 
that  colonial  is  three-quarters  of  sterling.  This  was  applied, 
however,  not  to  the  true  metallic  value  of  the  coins  in  sterling, 
but  to  the  current  rating  in  London,  which  was  inaccurate, 
being  affected  by  the  wear  of  guineas,  the  errors  in  the  English 
rating  of  gold  to  silver,  and  the  inconvenience  of  minute  frac¬ 
tions.  These  errors  were  all  taken  over  and  some  of  them 
exaggerated  by  the  rule  adopted  in  Massachusetts.  The  piece 

1  Some  were  in  circulation,  in  1749,  which  weighed  only  13^  pennyweights 
(i  Douglass,  Summary ,  358). 

8  See  below.  3  10  Col.  Rec .,  337. 


4  3  Acts  and  Resolves ,  494. 


Yale  Review. 


[Nov* 


2  74 

of  eight  which  would  have  been  six  shillings  colonial  on  this 
rule  must  have  had  386.64  grains  pure  contents;  shilling  64.44 
grains  pure.  But  we  have  just  seen  that  the  actual  pieces  of 
eight,  current  at  six  shillings,  contained  from  377.4  to  377.9 
pure;  shilling  62.9  grains.  If  one  man  paid  with  a  piece  of 
eight  and  another  with  an  English  shilling, '  the  latter  paid 
16.392  pence  for  16  pence  by  proportion.  The  shilling  and 
crown  must  therefore  “rise”  to  this  rating  and  its  multiple,  or 
be  clipped  or  exported.  When  the  law  rated  them  at  i6d.  and 
6s.  8d.  respectively,  and  tried  to  keep  them  down  by  a  penalty 
for  passing  them  at  a  higher  rate,  it  only  drove  them  out.  The 
real  motive  of  the  law  was  apprehension  that  other  coins  would 
be  raised,  by  the  usage  of  the  market,  so  that  they  would  be 
proportionate  to  the  piece  of  eight  which  was  current  at  six 
shillings. 

In  regard  to  gold  coins  the  effect  was  different.  In  1762, 
Thatcher  said  that  it  was  only  by  an  “oversight”  that  gold  was 
not  mentioned  in  the  Resumption  Act,  and  he  claimed  that  all 
the  coins  enumerated  in  the  Act  of  1750  were  thereby  made 
legal  tender  at  the  rating  there  set  upon  them.  A  guinea, 
129.438/118.625,  was  rated  at  28s.  colonial;  a  pistole, 
104/94.792  [Newton],1  at  22s.;  a  johannes,  221.3/202.9 
[Noback],  at  48s.;  a  moidore,  166.75/151.5  [“as  they  come  into 
England,”  Newton],  at  36s.  The  colonial  shilling  in  pure  gold, 
derived  from  these  coins,  at  the  rating,  would  be,  in  guineas, 
4.237  grains,  in  pistoles,  4.31  ;2  in  johannes,  4.226;  in  moidores, 
4.209.  These  figures  show  why  johannes  and  moidores  are 
heard  of  as  far  more  common  in  the  circulation  than  guineas 
and  pistoles.  If  the  former  two  were  worn  or  filed  the  advan¬ 
tage  would  be  greater.  The  law  was  sooner  or  later  imitated 
by  the  other  New  England  Colonies,  and  the  ratings  established 
by  it  became  customary  throughout  Anglo-America  during  the 
next  twenty-five  years. 

1  Newton  found  the  pistoles  one-half  of  a  carat  grain  worse  [.911.46],  and  the 
moidores  one-quarter  of  a  carat  grain  worse  [.914]. 

2  A  full  pistole  was  worth  16s.  g^d.  sterling.  Hence  it  was  worth  more 
than  its  rating  compared  with  the  others.  For  this  reason  when  a  sum  was  to 
be  obtained ,  pistoles  at  the  rating  were  sought,  (i  Conn.  Hist.  Soc.  Coll.,  285.) 
They  were  melted. 


2?5 


1898]  The  Coin  Shilling  of  Massachusetts  Bay. 

‘'Dollars”  were  the  money  of  account  in  treasury  bonds  of 
I75°.1  In  those  of  1752,  the  obligation  was  to  pay  in  silver 
at  6s.  8d.  per  oz.,  or  in  gold  at  £5  is.  7d. ;  ratio  15.38  to  1. 
Soetbeer's  Hamburg  rate,  at  the  time,  is  14^  to  1.  This  law 
stands  entirely  by  itself.  The  bonds  would  have  been  paid  in 
gold,  but  they  were  no  doubt  paid  in  current  pieces  of  eight, 
as  above,  at  six  shillings  each.  At  £5  is.  7d.  per  oz.  a  shilling 
was  4.331  grains  of  pure  gold,  and  this,  against  a  silver  shilling 
of  62.9  grains  pure,  would  give  a  ratio  of  14.52  to  1.  In  the 
treasury  bonds  of  the  following  ten  years  the  obligation  was 
to  pay  at  6s.  8d.  per  oz.  or  in  dollars  at  six  shillings. 

After  1758  subsidies  were  received  from  England,  part  of 
which  were  sent  over  in  coin,  for  the  most  part  in  Spanish 
and  Portuguese  gold,  because  this  was  the  cheapest  discharge 
by  the  exchequer  of  the  sums  voted  by  Parliament.  When 
dollars  were  sent  they  were  reckoned  by  the  ounce.  Spanish 
and  Portuguese  gold  coins  were  delivered  by  tale,  with  a  mini¬ 
mum  weight,  at  the  current  rating  in  England.2  These  gold 
coins  were  paid  to  the  creditors  of  the  Colony  at  the  rates  in 
the  Act  of  1750.  Express  mention  is  made  by  the  agents  of 
the  Colonies  of  the  care  taken,  and  expense  incurred,  by  them, 
to  select  full  weight  coins.3  As  a  consequence,  it  was  stated, 
in  1762:  ‘'Gold  is  now  become  by  far  the  greatest  part  of  the 
medium  of  trade  of  this  Province.”4  The  exportation  of  dollars 
became  a  subject  of  complaint. 

In  his  message  of  1761,  the  Governor  called  attention  to 
the  counterfeiting  of  treasury  bonds,  and  also  of  coin,  and  he 
argued  that  these  crimes  flourished  because  the  penalties  were 
inadequate.  By  a  legislative  freak,  the  consideration  of  this 
subject  led  to  the  introduction  of  a  bill  to  make  gold  a  legal 
tender  at  the  rates  which  had  become  customary  since  1750. 
Inasmuch  as  the  first  proposition  was  to  determine  the  mini¬ 
mum  weight  at  which  the  coins  might  pass  by  tale  at  the  rat¬ 
ing,  it  is  evident  that  they  had  lost  weight.  A  struggle  ensued 
between  the  Council  and  the  House  on  the  old  paper  money 

1  3  Acts  and  Resolves ,  531. 

2  1  Conn.  Hist.  Soc.  Coll.,  286  ;  4  Acts  and  Resolves,  A/ass.,  347. 

Cf.  1  Conn.  Hist.  Soc.,  285.  4  4  Acts  and  Resolves ,  490. 


1 


276  Yale  Review.  [Nov. 

lines,  the  latter  (the  “country  party”)  trying  to  put  the  mini¬ 
mum  low;  the  former  (the  “court  party”)  trying  to  put  it 
at  the  legal  standard  of  the  respective  coins,  or  at  the  minimum 
at  which  the  coins  had  been  paid  to  the  Colony  in  the  subsidies.1  . 
The  Act  as  passed,  Feb.  8,  1762,  limited  the  johannes  to  a 
minimum  weight  of  221  grains  [202.59  pure],  the  half  moidore 
to  83  grains  [76  pure]  ;  the  guinea  to  129  grains  [118.25  pure]. 
Each  of  these  would  give  a  shilling  of  4.22  grains  of  pure  gold. 

As  to  guineas,  the  Bank  and  the  Excise  office,  in  London,  in 
17 53,  published  a  rule  that  they  would  not  receive  them  if  they 
had  lost  more  than  six  grains,  4 per  cent.  Hence  the  best 
ones  must  have  been  down  to  this  limit.2  In  1773,  a  test  of 
£3,500,000  in  guineas,  accepted  just  as  they  came  by  the  Bank 
for  the  purpose  of  the  test,  showed  a  loss  of  nine  per  cent.3 
Selected  guineas  sent  over  in  1760  showed  a  loss  of  1.08  per 
cent,  by  tale  as  compared  with  weight,  which  would  bring  the 
guinea  down  to  127.61  grains.4  The  silver  coin  of  England  had 
lost  by  clipping  and  wear  one-sixth.5  The  price  of  silver  in  1761 
was  5s.  9d.,  which  shows  a  loss  of  16  per  cent.  The  Massa¬ 
chusetts  Act  of  1762  provided  that,  if  any  coin  was  below  the 
minimum  legal  weight,  it  should  nevertheless  be  a  good  tender 
at  a  reduction  of  two  and  a  half  pence  for  each  grain  which  it 
had  lost.  There  was  a  struggle  between  the  two  Houses  over 
the  attempt  of  the  Council  to  insert  the  words,  “express  con¬ 
tracts  to  the  contrary  excepted.”  “As  [these]  words  do  not 
appear  in  the  Act,  and  as  the  clause,  omitted  in  the  bill,  relating 
to  the  entering  up  of  judgments,  appears  in  the  Act,  as  well  as 
the  clause  fixing  the  rate  of  gold,  it  would  seem  that  the  bill, 
after  it  had  passed  to  be  enacted,  had  been,  in  some  manner, 
reconsidered  and  amended,  sometime  after  its  passage  to  be 
enacted  in  both  Houses,  and  before  it  had  been  signed  by  the 
Governor,  or  received  the  seal,  though  no  further  record  of  this 
irregular  proceeding  has  been  preserved.”6 

While  this  bill  was  pending,  a  controversy  arose  between 
Oxenbridge  Thatcher  and  Hutchinson  about  its  justice  and  its 

i 

I 

1  4  Acts  and  Resolves,  552,  556.  2  2  Ruding,  79.  3  34  Jo.  Ho.  Comm.,  734. 

4  4  Acts  and  Resolves ,  541.  5  Lord  Liverpool  to  the  King ,  ad  init. 

6  4  Acts  and  Resolves ,  556,  Ed.  note. 


1 


1 89SJ  The  Coin  Shilling  of  Massachusetts  Bay ,  277 

effect.1  Hutchinson  proposed  to  rate  the  johannes  at  46s. 
instead  of  48s.  He  said  that  there  had  been  no  scarcity  of 
silver  after  resumption,  until  the  exchange  with  England  turned 
against  the  Province;  that  then,  “upon  comparing  the  prices 
of  the  two  metals  here  with  their  prices  in  England,  it  appeared 
that  silver  might  be  shipped  to  much  greater  advantage  than 
gold”;  that  during  the  following  twelve  years,  “by  means  of  a 
variety  of  favorable  circumstances,”  exchange  had  not  been 
above  par,  little  metal  had  been  shipped,  the  divergence  of  the 
ratings  in  England  and  America  had  not  been  great,  and  no 
mischief  had  been  experienced;  that  now  abundance  of  money 
had  led  to  luxury  and  large  importations,  silver  was  being 
exported,  and  so  the  question  was  raised  again.2 

Both  disputants  agreed  that  the  latest  quotations  in  London 
were,  for  gold  (Portuguese),  £4  os.  8d.,  and  for  silver  5s.  9d. 
[ratio  14.158  to  1];  that  the  par  of  exchange  was  at  120 
although  it  had  been  formerly  133;  that  the  standard  in  Massa¬ 
chusetts  was  6s.  iod.  per  oz.,  or  a  milled  piece  of  eight  for  six 
shillings;  and  Hutchinson  said  that  the  piece  of  eight  weighed 
417  grains.  The  last  two  statements  are  irreconcilable.  The 
piece  of  eight  would  have  to  be  .934.9  fine.  Soetbeer’s  ratio  for 
1761  is  14.54  to  1;  for  1762,  15.27  to  1.  The  arbitrary  impor¬ 
tation  of  gold  into  Massachusetts  had  no  doubt  lowered  its 
value  there  relatively  to  silver,  compared  with  former  times. 
Without  undertaking  to  judge  what  it  may  have  been,  we  may 
be  confident  that  the  ratio  14.905  to  1,  which  resulted  from  a 
silver  shilling  of  62.9  grains  fine,  and  a  gold  shilling  of  4.22 
grains  fine,  was  unjust  to  silver  in  1761,  and  would  force  its 
exportation  when  the  exchange  was  adverse.  It  was  impossible 
to  make  use  of  the  small  gold  shilling  and  to  keep  silver  too, 
when  the  supply  of  gold  was  ample.  In  practice,  the  form  in 
which  the  question  always  presented  itself  was:  How  can  a  debt 
of  a  shilling  sterling  in  England  be  most  easily  discharged? 
At  £4  os.  8d.  per  oz.  for  Portuguese  gold,  a  johannes  of  221 

1  Considerations  on  Lowering  the  Value  of  Gold  Coins ,  etc.,  and  letters  in  the 
Bost.  Evg.  Post ,  Dec.  1761  and  Jan.  1762. 

*  Cf.  4  Acts  and  Resolves,  559. 


278 


Yale  Review . 


[Nov. 


grains  was  the  equivalent  of  37.14s.  sterling.1  Exchange  being 
taken  at  par,  120,  this  was  worth  44s.  6.8d.  col.;  but  the  coin 
was  rated  at  48s.  col.  Eight  dollars  were  also  48s.  col.  If 
each  contained  377.4  grains  pure,  according  to  the  result  of  our 
investigation  above,  they  would  sell  at  the  quotation  (5s.  9d. 
per  oz.)  for  39s.  sterling,  equivalent,  with  exchange  at  120,  to 
46s.  9.6d.  col.  The  dollars  were  therefore  worth  4.77  per  cent, 
more  in  exchange  than  the  gold  johannes,  although  the  two 
were  rated  equal  in  Massachusetts.  The  latter  would  remain 
there;  the  former  would  be  exported.  Inasmuch  as  the  dollars 
had  been  the  money,  a  change  to  the  johannes  would  drop  the 
standard  4^  per  cent.,  as  Hutchinson  said,  or  would  be  like 
raising  the  rating  of  the  dollar  to  6s.  3d.  or  6s.  4d.,  or  silver 
to  7s.  4d.  per  oz.  To  bring  the  two  metals  to  a  point  of  indif¬ 
ference  on  the  same  ratio  as  in  England,  the  johannes  should 
have  been  rated  at  45s.  io.68d.  col.;  hence  Hutchinson  pro¬ 
posed  to  rate  it  at  46s.  But  dollars  at  6s.  and  other  coins  as 
in  the  law  of  1750  had  become  customary.  Taxes  were  made 
payable  by  the  Act  under  discussion  in  the  coins  at  those  rates. 
On  account  of  changes  in  the  market  for  the  metals  which 
took  place  immediately  afterwards,  it  appears  that  the  effect  of 
the  law  of  1762  was  not  so  great  as  had  been  expected;  in  fact, 
not  very  important.  The  above  calculation  all  depends  on  the 
quotations  then  last  received  from  England,  and  they  were 
affected  by  the  badness  of  the  English  coinage.  “Y.  Z.”  thought 
it  a  “flurry,”  after  which  the  rates  would  return  to  the  former 
customary  rates,  5s.  4d.  for  silver  and  £3  17s.  6d.  for  gold. 
This  was  a  ratio  of  14.66  to  i.2  Connecticut,  in  March,  1761, 
“considering  the  extraordinary  price  that  foreign  coins  now 
bear  in  England,”  rescinded  a  vote  to  order  a  subsidy  payable 
to  her  to  be  sent  over  in  specie,  and  ordered  it  deposited  on 
interest  that  bills  might  be  sold  against  it  later.3  If  silver  fell, 
as  Soetbeer’s  figures  indicate,  the  case  would  be  entirely 

1  Y.  Z.,  in  the  Post  of  Jan.  n,  1762,  reckons  a  johannes  of  220  grains  worth 
44s.  4%d.  [4^]  col.  This  shows  that  the  current  coins  were  below  221  grains. 

2  (Post,  Jan.  11,  1762.)  There  must  have  been  a  loss  of  interest  by  delay  at 
the  mint. 


3  11  Conn.  Col.  Rec 489. 


i  S98]  The  Com  Shilling  of  Massachusetts  Bay .  279 

changed.  Hutchinson  feared  that  pistareens  would,  at  the  next 
stage,  be  made  legal  tender  at  their  current  rate,  14  pence, 
although  not  worth  probably  over  8  pence.  A  quantity  of 
them  had  been  sent  with  the  reimbursements,  and  they  served 
the  purpose  of  subsidiary  coins  by  the  side  of  the  gold  coins 
upon  the  modern  single  standard  system. 

The  minimum  weights  for  gold  coins  in  the  Act  of  1762  were 
reasonably  correct,  and  would  have  kept  up  the  standard  of  the 
money  of  account,  but  the  provision  that  deficiency  should  be 
allowed  for  at  2]/2  pence  per  grain  was  incorrect  and  mischie¬ 
vous.  It  encouraged  filing  and  clipping.  At  4.22  grains  of 
fine  gold  for  one  shilling,  a  grain  of  standard  gold  was  worth 
2.61  pence.  Hence  a  deficient  coin  was  legally  rated  higher  in 
proportion  than  a  perfect  one.  For  instance:  a  johannes  of  221 
grains  was  equal  to  35s.  io.2d.  sterling  and  was  rated  at  36s. 
for  current  use  in  London.  By  the  rule  of  the  law  of  1750, 
that  colonial  was  three-fourths  of  sterling,  this  coin  should  have 
been  47s.  9.6d.  col.  It  was  rated  at  48s.  If  it  had  lost  20 
grains,  it  would  pass  for  43s.  iod.  At  the  rate  of  the  full  coin, 
201  grains  would  be  worth  43s.  7.8d. 

Attempts  to  find  any  quotations  of  commercial  exchange  on 
London  at  Boston  in  the  middle  of  the  18th  century  have  thus 
far  proved  fruitless.  Gov.  Belcher  wrote,  in  1734,  “It  is  the 
.hardest  thing  to  be  done  in  the  New  England  world  to  procure 
bills  for  England.”1  There  were  no  quotations  in  the  modern 
sense.  In  the  laws  which  were  passed  for  selling  bills  to  draw 
the  subsidies  from  England,  the  minimum  rates  for  30-day  bills 
were  set  as  follows:  1761,  136;  1762,  138;  1763,  136;  1764, 
1 3.5 ;  1765,  135.  The  par  rate  above  cited,  120  at  the  end  of 
1761,  was  no  doubt  a  commercial  rate  and  also  at  30  days  sight. 
The  divergence  of  the  quotations  is  very  remarkable.  Freight 
and  insurance  on  specie  remittances  we  find  reckoned  at  4^2 
per  cent.,  in  1760.2  Insurance  rates,  in  1756,  were  2j4  to  3J4 
per  cent.3  If  we  had  quotations  of  sterling  exchange  and  of 
the  London  prices  of  the  metals  for  the  period,  they  would  be 
of  the  greatest  value  to  us,  as  enabling  us  to  make  a  final  test 

1  VI.  7.  Mass.  Hist.  Soc.  Coll.,  57.  2  4  Acts  and  Resolves,  541. 

3  1  Conn.  Hist.  Soc.  Coll.,  285. 


28o 


Yale  Review . 


[Nov. 


of  the  results  of  our  investigation.  The  best  verification  we 
can  make  is  as  follows:  In  regard  to  commercial  bills,  (i)  when 
silver  was  at  5 gold  shillings  per  oz.,  62.9  grains  of  pure  sil¬ 
ver  would  be  worth  .755  of  an  English  shilling  and  the  exchange 
would  be  132.3,  metallic  par.  (2)  When  silver  was  at  5^4 
gold  shillings  per  oz.  (the  “rise”  being  due  in  part,  at  least, 
to  deterioration  of  guineas),  62.9  grains  of  pure  silver  would  be 
worth  .814  of  an  English  shilling,  and  the  metallic  par  would  be 
122.8.  We  should  expect  the  par  rate  for  30-day  bills  to  be 
two  or  three  points  below  these  figures,  and  the  ordinary 
extreme  range  of  exchange  would  be  about  five  points  above 
and  below  that.  As  to  public  bills,  we  note  that  the  rate  was 
a  minimum  only,  set  in  advance  by  law,  and  was  not  a  market 
rate.  We  may  be  sure  that  bills  sold  in  Massachusetts  would 
be  paid  for  in  gold  coins  at  the  rating;  one  shilling  not  over 
4.22  grains  fine.  If  the  bills  were  paid  promptly  and  in  full 
weight  guineas,  the  exchange  would  be,  at  metallic  par,  133.8. 
The  data  are  so  inadequate  and  uncertain  that  these  calculations 
cannot  be  presented  with  confidence. 

During  the  remainder  of  the  time  that  the  Province  of  Massa¬ 
chusetts  Bay^existed,  the  shilling  was  4.22  grains  of  fine  gold, 
subject  to  deterioration  by  the  wear  and  abuse  of  the  gold  coins, 
or  62.9  grains  of  fine  silver,  subject  to  the  deteroriation  of  the 
Spanish  dollar.  The  dollars  coined  after  1772  should  have 
been  4i7-75/377-I3  grains. 

William  G.  Sumner. 

Yale  University. 


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